Round 2...

Our second wave of greens aerification is complete and we are still continuing the Graden and aerification process on our fairways. We also aerified the tees and approaches this time as opposed to only verticutting as we did last time. As I said earlier, these processes are a critical part of alleviating traffic stress and maintaining a proper thatch layer on our playing surfaces. Our greens are already healing over faster this time for a few different reasons. We were able to get a sufficient fertilizer application down following aerification while avoiding heavy flushing rains afterward.

Here is a look at the process...
First, the greens are verticut and the clippings are blown off before they are topdressed

Once the topdressing is applied, the greens are then aerified

After aerification, the cores are dragged, blown off and picked up. Each green is then brushed to incorporate the sand into the profile, rolled, fertilized, and watered. 

The approaches were also aerified, cleaned off, topdressed, and dragged

Here is a look at 2 fairway following the Graden process

We will be doing more verticutting and a few other cultural practices during this summer season to insure that our playing surfaces are stronger and will be ready for next upcoming season. However, none will be to the extent of the Graden process.

Summer Work Has Begun

As you all have noticed, we have begun the first phase of our aerification and verticutting processes around the course. Although they are disruptive to the quality of our playing surfaces, it is important to realize that these cultural practices are essential to the health and sustainability of our grasses. Aerification is a process that relieves the compaction from the traffic of our busy season and helps eliminate the thatch layer that has built up over the fall and winter months. Verticutting also removes thatch build up and promotes new growth that results in a smoother, more consistent playing surface. On the greens, we follow up with a layer of topdressing sand to fill the aerification holes with fresh sand. We then apply fertilizer to stimulate quick recovery and new plant growth. Our overall process on the greens this year was different than years past. After monitoring the greens following aerification, our next aerification will be fine tuned for quicker recovery. We will repeat these processes throughout the summer to establish a strong foundation for the busy season, and information on the dates when we will be doing this work will be made available through the pro shop.

The driving range tees are in the process of recovering from the spring transition. The reason we saw struggling surfaces was partly because of overseed transition and partly because of heavy damage from divots. Ideally, new grasses require about a year of growth and development before they are strong enough to grow with the competition of the winter grasses. However, due to the fact that the practice areas take on significantly more divots than fairways, we needed to insure that we had a full stand of turf in these areas. Now that all the overseed has died out, we have increased our fertilizer applications to the practice areas and are beginning to see strong recovery.

The verti-cut lines on fairways are nearly healed from the first verti-cut.

Aerification holes on greens are fully sealed and ready for round 2.